Lost in Adaptation: A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Dom compares the 2004 fantasy comedy film Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events with the first three novels in the Series of Unfortunate Events book series -- The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room (both 1999), and The Wide Window (2000) -- that served as its basis. Intro (shows The Dom reading ''The Bad Beginning) '''The Dom (V.O. as Lemony Snicket):' (narrating from the book) Dear Reader, I am sorry to say the book you are holding in your hands is *extremely* unpleasant. It tells an unhappy tale about three *very* unlucky children. It is *my* sad duty to write down these unpleasant tales; but there's nothing stopping *you* from putting the book down at once and going and doing something more fun, if you prefer that sort of thing. With all due respect, Lemony Snicket. (The Dom thinks for a moment) The Dom: Sounds fair. (tosses the book through a window and walks off whistling) (text appears reading "Some Time Later") (shows the three punks from ''Terminator Genisys) '''Punk 1:' Hey, hey, hey, what's wrong with *this* picture? (they see the naked T-800 walking toward them) Punk 2: Nice night for a walk, eh? T-800: Your clothes. Give them to me, now. The Dom (Off-screen): (echoing dramatically) *You're* not gonna *need* clothes. (the T-800 turns to see The Dom walking toward it, analyzing him with its robotic vision) The Dom: You know what? Now that I say that out loud, that sounds super gay; but still (pulls down the hood on his jacket), I've been *waiting* for you. Ah- (looks down at the "weapon" in his hand) Oh. Uhhhhh... (looks back at the T-800) Rather than bring a gun, like I originally intended, apparently, I've brought a baguette. Ummm...could we reschedule? (the T-800 rushes at The Dom, who puts his hands up and screams like a girl) (text appears reading "Some More Time Later") (shows The Dom playing a ukulele on the Doof Wagon in ''Mad Max: Fury Road) '''The Dom:' WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO- (the ukulele starts shooting out fire) AaaaAAAAAaaaaaaaahh!!! *Mine's* not supposed to do that!!! (looks to his left) Hey, Immortal Joe, *notice* me- I mean, *witness* me! (he is shocked to see ''The Bad Beginning in the Gigahorse'') The Dom: More speed, guitar guy! ONWAAAAAAAAAAAAAARDS!!! (text appears reading "Yet More Time Later") Rhomann Dey: They call themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy. Denarian Saal: What a bunch of a-holes. (shows The Dom standing among the Guardians of the Galaxy and dancing as "Hooked on a Feeling" plays) (text appears reading "Later. Yeah.") (shows The Dom in a desert, playing ''Pokémon on a Game Boy, when Finn from The Force Awakens pops up'') The Dom: D'AAAH! You scared the *shit* out of me, black stormtrooper! Go do some stormtrooper stuff -- fire at something and miss for a bit. (looks to his left) D'AHHHH!! NO! (shows ''The Bad Beginning in the sand'') The Dom (Off-screen): NO! You said it was OKAY not to read you! The Dom: I'm NOT doing it! (the book floats up into the air and pursues The Dom through the desert, the ocean, a freeway, the sky, and space as he starts panting with fear) The Dom: NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Fine, I will *do* the fucking episode! *You* lied to me, Snicket! Poll People Asked: 30 Saw the Film: 24 Read the Book: 15 The Dom: A Series of Unfortunate Events is a long-running series of *kid's* books written by a guy named David Handler (text appears reading "DANIEL Handler. But ca'man, were you really expecting me to get it right at this point?"); however, they sport the name "Lemony Snicket" on the front. Snicket's actually an in-universe character who narrates the story; it's kind of another Princess Bride situation without the same level of tongue-in-cheek commitment to the lie. While Handler's *openly* declared he approves of the film's changes, he also admitted he was a *bit* disappointed the script *he* wrote for the film wasn't used in the end, as he put a lot of work into it. Further research revealed that this is one of those films where all the major job roles changed hands at least once; I probably don't need to tell you that this is usually a *very* bad sign. The final screenplay was written by a guy called Robert Gordon, who was involved in Men in Black and Galaxy Quest; and the film's directed by Brad Silberling, who directed Casper the Friendly Ghost and Land of the Lost -- a somewhat less confidence-inspiring résumé. Anyways, I've prepared a little presentation *I* like to call "Paramount's Guide to Book Adaptations". The Dom (V.O.): So, you want to combine the first three books into one movie -- makes sense in principle, seeing as all the books are quite short, consisting of only 13 chapters. But the *problem* that you're faced with now is that each book has a very clear beginning, middle, and end; so that won't *flow* very well in the film. The solution is to surgically remove the endings from all three books, throw away the second and third ones, and move the *first* ending to the end of the film. However, you now need a new semi-ending for the first arc, or the story can't progress; so you just *make up* a new one and jam it on in there. Now, you also want to completely *destroy* the books' slow buildup of mystery; so you need to take some slow plot points that weren't supposed to crop up until *much later* in the series and force them into *this* story with all the subtlety of a monkey using a crowbar. AT LAST, you have your adaptation. (lightning strikes the visual representation of this described adaptation, and eyes and a mouth appear on it) The Dom (V.O. as Adaptation Monster): BLEEEEEEEEAAAAAAGH!!! KIIIII-IIIILL MEEEEEE-EE-EEEEEE-EE-EEEEEEEEE!!! What They Didn't Change The Dom (V.O.): They held true to the core setup of the books, i.e. that you're not really *reading* a story about the Baudelaire orphans; more you're reading the results of Snicket's *meticulous* investigations into the events of their lives -- I'm not entirely sure how he derived what they were thinking about at the time, but there you are. In the book, the Snicket-based stuff *mostly* takes the form of him giving you his opinion on the events of the story; but there's also these little attachments at the end, where he writes to his *editor* and tells him how the investigation's going and where the next secret location he's going to be leaving the book is -- this is translated into the film by occasionally cutting to Snicket narrating/writing the story while hiding out in a clock tower. One of the things that makes the reordering of the story so frustrating is that if you consider each scene *individually*, they're actually pretty close to how they were described in the book. A fire claiming the lives of three children's loving parents; a moronic banker being put in charge of their futures and dropping them off with a raving lunatic who tries to steal their inheritance, fails, and spends the next couple of stories following them around in different disguises and killing off their subsequent guardians is...pretty much what went down in the book, yeah. That the Baudelaires were on a dank-ass beach when they got the news that Olaf had a bunch of mean-spirited circus freaks serving as his acting troupe/henchmen; the unending chores he demanded of them, along with his out-of-the-blue roast beef fixation; Montgomery Montgomery's kind attitude, but regretful gullibility; Aunt Josephine's irrational fear of everything, especially realtors; and the *surprisingly* terrifying man-eating leeches are *also* pretty damn close to the original novel. Despite my general exasperation with this film, I have to concede that they didn't do a bad job with the Baudelaire orphans either. Klaus looked like a bit more of a hipster than a nerd than I would have liked; but other than that, they kinda nailed it -- although now that I think about it, that was probably fairly easy to do, seeing as all three kids were written as having one major character trait that pretty much defined them: Violet was an aspiring engineer and inventor, Klaus was a dedicated bookworm, and Sunny was a weirdly intelligent baby with a biting obsession. In the book, Sunny would say some gibberish; then Snicket would translate what she meant -- also, for some reason, the other kids understood her. Subtitling her in the film was probably the best available progression of this, so it gets my approval. They also paid tribute to Snicket's...unique habit of explaining what certain words mean -- as an adult reading the book, I wasn't quite sure if he was trying to be educational or annoying. Aside from the absence of the cough that was supposed to occur before, after, and *during* everything he said, Mr. Poe was fairly accurate. I'm guessing Jim Carrey must have recently read the books because his line about Mr. Poe being the *real* monster of the tale for repeatedly dropping the kids off with inappropriate guardians and not believing them about Olaf, no matter *how* many times they were right in the past, is something I'm *sure* every reader has wanted to *tell* him at some point -- fucking dickhead. In fact, the recurring theme of the truth being *so* obvious to the children, but so *constantly* not seen by the adults; and the infusion of their *frustration* at their opinions constantly being *dismissed* simply because they were *inconvenient*, combined with the constant feeling of impotent helplessness that comes from not being allowed to have a say in one's own future, were very important staples of the book -- the successful integration of these things into the film was by *far* its greatest triumph. The Dom: Soooo...it *is* just a shame about... What They Changed The Dom (V.O.): The elf thing is a film-only addition; I'm assuming their reasoning was something along the lines of, "Hey, we need something upbeat to juxtaposition the cartoonishly dark theme we're going with; then, I don't know, we can make a bunch of callbacks to it *later* and junk." Oh, and while I *kind* of like the way they updated Snicket's disclaimer at the start to reflect moviegoing instead of reading, I was kinda put off that he encouraged you to *stay* if you were into dark tales; Book Snicket was always *consistent* in his *insistence* that avoiding the story *altogether* was the only logical choice for people -- see, movie? Right from the start, you're annoying me. Ahhhh, Jim Carrey, how I love that guy -- he was a *terrible* choice for Count Olaf. Cue the response, "But, Dom, you beautiful bastard, how can you say he's not right for this if you *like* him so much?" Well, Beautiful Watchers, that's *exactly* the problem: you're not *supposed* to like Olaf; you're supposed to LOOOOOATHE him! If you haven't read the book yet and you want to get a feel for the emotions he inspires in people, imagine Denethor and Skyler White had a kid, that kid grew up with Joffrey Baratheon as his playmate, got a job where he's *mentored* by Cal Hockey (sic), married Lori Grimes; and his best friend is Emperor Commodus, and they go bowling every Friday night with Alex DeLarge and Calvin Candie. See where I'm going with this? Count Olaf is an irredeemably *vile* son of a bitch. Jim Carrey can't *not* be a lovable, overactive dope; it was a *terrible* casting choice -- plus it seems the writers felt behooved to force in a bunch of pointless scenes that weren't in the book to take full advantage of their A-list celebrity. So, as you saw in my awesome presentation, the wedding plot was supposed to take place at the *end* of the first arc and be the reason the children were removed from Count Olaf's custody. By moving it to the end of the *film*, they needed something else to fill in; so they did the whole "car on the train tracks" thing. It's not a bad scene as *such*, and the children getting out of the situation by utilizing each of their individual talents *is* something they would have done in the book -- although, just from my own personal standpoint, I've always found the whole "trapped in the car" trope a tad annoying. Car windows are *designed* to break; just hit them a little harder, dude. (shows Violet and Klaus shooting a makeshift grappling hook with a ''Littlest Elf bobblehead on the end out of Olaf's car'') No, you don't have to make a DIY elf cannon; just hit the window a little *harder*, COME ON! They also changed the ending to the "Marvelous Marriage" scene. If you're wondering why Klaus felt the need to whisper "What would Violet do? What would Violet do?" under his breath instead of trying to solve the problem his *own* way, it's because the grappling hook affair *was*, in fact, entirely Violet's -- it was a failed attempt at rescuing Sunny the night *before* the play; she MacGyvered the grappling hook and the rope from pretty much nothing and scaled the side of the building, only to be *thwarted* at the last minute by Mr. Hook-Hands. During all this, Klaus was, in fact, sleeping; *his* time to shine had been the night before, where he stayed up for hours reading a book on nuptial law to try and figure out where Olaf was going with this whole "marriage play" thing. Oh, and I had to grit my teeth when Sunny was all "Bleah *bleah*!" (shows the subtitle "The eye!" during the described scene) because in the book, the whole eye motif wasn't even a fucking *eye* in the end; it turned out to be an extremely weird font. What the *fuck* was with that magnifying glass? That thing features not at *all* in the book. Yes, it's possible Olaf *may* have started the fire that killed the Baudelaire parents; but he probably did it with, you know...fucking matches?! As opposed to Klaus burning the marriage certificate, *Violet* foils Olaf's plan in the book by signing the marriage license with her left hand, which apparently doesn't *count* in this universe and voids the contract. What makes it worse is that in the film, they actually *show* Olaf *noticing* her doing this and stopping her -- I was like, "COME ON! If you're gonna change shit, don't rub it in our faces!" The weird mix of technologies -- wherein a car would have a phone and a wireless locking system, but also have an analogue clock; and people would have modern sunglasses and drive speedboats, but trains would still run on *steam* -- isn't *really* in the book. That is to say, the book *did* exist in a weird, timeless setting; but it preferred to *avoid* mention of decade-specific items, so the occasional out-of-piece technology was less noticeable. The film went the opposite route by intentionally *flaunting* the contradictory mix of development in your face all the way through. In the book *and* the film, Aunt Josephine's house is indeed destroyed in a storm. However, the parts where all her weird fears are vindicated and the kids end up stranded on the spindliest remains is film-only; in the book, they got out of there as fast as...well, I don't know, three people in a *house* that's about to fall off a fucking *cliff*?! So, let's talk about those *wretched* spyglasses -- *damn* them to *hell* for making me break my rule about not including sequel info again. While they are technically in the later books, they never get fully explained; and they don't get so much as a *mention* in the first three -- not one *word*! There *isn't* one in the burned-down mansion, Uncle Monty doesn't have one, Aunt Josephine's late husband didn't own one, the kids aren't given one, and Snicket doesn't talk about the significance of owning one! This is another fine example of Hollywood's tradition of just being sure enough that they won't get a sequel that they do *everything* in their power to make SURE they don't get a sequel! It's exactly the same thing that fucked up the Percy Jackson movies, and it drives me fucking MAD!! (The Dom makes a raspberry sound) The Dom: Let's just move on to what wasn't deemed filmworthy. What They Left Out Altogether The Dom (V.O.): Like I mentioned before, they cut out the second and third books' endings. They streamline the second one all the way down into just proving that the incredibly deadly viper was actually quite friendly and not deadly at all; but originally, there was a bunch of *other* plot twists -- like Olaf crashing into Mr. Poe's car; Violet breaking into Olaf's suitcase to find a syringe full of snake venom; and a weird, drawn-out argument involving transportation. The *third* ending pretty much just involves the kids trying to reveal Olaf's identity to Mr. Poe *before* he lets them take them away -- it's a tribute to Handler's talent as an author that, even though his books tend to lack genuinely climactic endings, you still *feel* like they do because of the way he describes small things like Sunny figuring out she can just *bite* Olaf's fake wooden leg off. I was also a bit disappointed that they skipped over the part where the kids try to sneak past, then get into a scrap with Olaf's monstrously *huge* hermaphrodite henchman -- incidentally, in the books, it didn't look like a man *or* a woman; it wasn't some sort of transgender Harvey Dent. Olaf disposing of Montgomery Montgomery's assistant by tying him to the front of a train is actually *significantly* less unpleasant for him than the events of the book, where Olaf just murders the *shit* out of the poor man -- presumably with his knife -- and dumps his body in the swamp. Justice Strauss is meant to have a bigger and less useless, runny-offey role in the first story arc; she's the only shining light in the children's sea of black despair in the book, but I guess they decided they needed to reduce her role to make more time for Jim Carrey doing dinosaur impressions. On to a slightly...awkward subject -- and the 3.0 bunker isn't finished yet, so I'm going to have to ask you to hear me out -- they left out that Olaf *quite clearly* wanted to have sex with 14-year-old Violet -- yeahhhh, kid's book. Okay, just to be clear, this *isn't* just my personal head canon, and I'm not just basing it on the way that he *leers* at her all the way through the book and comments on what a...*pretty* little girl that she is; he straight-up states to a *crowd* of people that he's planning to take her home for their *wedding* night. EAUGH! Do you think they *told* Jim Carrey he was playing a pedophile? The Dom's Final Thoughts The Dom: Maybe I'm being too harsh here; apparently, I'm much more perturbed by mediocrity than outright incompetence. I just can't shake the feeling that this *could* have been a very *successful* series of movies if they'd just done a slightly better job of recreating Handler's characters and resisted the urge to mess around with the timeline of events, both within the adapted books and the series as a whole. Another problem may not be anything to do with the film at all. A lot of people believe that Handler didn't really hit his stride until around Book 5, and it was the *subsequent* novels that really made A Series of Unfortunate Events as popular as they are. So, obviously, there's no way the film could start that far ahead in the series; they were stuck adapting the less popular ones *first* and desperately hoping it would do well enough to warrant sequels -- it didn't. However, as I'm sure some of you are already aware, A Series of Unfortunate Events is being given a second lease on life in the form of a Netflix original series; and oh, *boy*, have *those* guys proven they can take a previously mishandled concept and do a hell of a better job on it -- so, you know, fingers crossed. Category:Lost in Adaptation Transcripts Category:Transcripts Category:Content Category:Guides Category:Paramount Pictures